The Logistics of a Bear Mating With a Peacock
by whatthefoucault
Summary: aka The One Where Howard and Vince Finally Get Married.  Ten chapters of weddingy sillies.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: Quelle freaking surprise, I don't own 'em.

**A/N**: I'm almost as bad as certain convoluted superhero comic book universes for this continuity crap. This relatively stands alone, but will make the most sense if you've read Flying Lessons and the other stuff that precedes and follows it, as well as the Nathan Barley story Another Sky, which takes place during the same time that this does, and occasionally crosses over. I like to refer to the whole thing as the Crisis On Infinite Barrattandfieldingverses. But yeah, so, uhh, read on!

That morning, Vince Noir, rock and roll shopkeeper, was embroiled in one of the most shocking political upheavals he had ever borne witness to.

"Oh no, civil unrest in Stationery Village!" cried Vince, bashing office supplies together in pretend battle. "The Pritt sticks have come out in support of the sticky notes in their protest of increased rail fares! They're storming paperclip castle! The riot police have come out in full force and they're not afraid to use their hot glue guns!"

"No they haven't, Vince," sighed Howard (Moon, that is, Vince's longtime best friend, colleague, flatmate, and most recently, blushing bride-to-be), standing the fallen sellotape tree. "Put those biros back in the right order, please."

"But I'm well bored," huffed Vince, grudgingly sticking the rows of blu-tack back down in their garden.

"Here's an idea for something fun you might like to try," suggested Howard with a heavy sigh, "why not try doing some work for a change?"

Vince jumped in horror.

"Whoa there, let's not get ridiculous," he replied with a nervous laugh.

"Fine," sighed Howard. "Has this afternoon's edition of _Cheekbone Weddings_ been ninja'd in yet? Why don't you set us up a cake tasting?"

"As it happens, I have a sketch of our dream cake right here," grinned Vince, pulling a folded up sheet of paper from fuck knows where, as his trousers were clearly too tight to ever have real pockets. He unfolded it across the countertop with a triumphant flourish. "This, Howard, is our wedding cake."

"Vince," squinted Howard, "this is a teacake."

"Exactly," Vince winked. "Only this teacake is one hundred times the size of a normal teacake, and you see those bits there? It's decorated with jelly snakes, gummy fried eggs, fizzy gummy cherry cola bottles, and flying saucers, plus it's got the words 'Congratulations Mr. and Mr. Howard and Vince' written on it in strawberry bootlaces! It's guaranteed to be the single most amazing wedding cake the world has ever seen!"

"What's wrong with keeping it simple?" countered Howard. "A nice basic sponge, bittersweet ganache filling, frosted with a reasonable layer of vanilla buttercream?"

"Seriously? That is well boring," moaned Vince. "I'd say giant teacake wins this battle, hands down. It's our wedding day, love! It's got to be something the Camden elite will tell their grandkids about one day!"

"Vince, none of our guests will so much as _have_ grandkids if they're all sent into diabetic comas as a result of that glucosic abomination," observed Howard.

"Yeah, and I suppose you'd rather serve a giant square of Ryvita, wouldn't you?" sneered Vince, folding up his sketch.

"What's wrong with wanting to bring a little class to the occasion?" reasoned Howard.

"What's more classy than a teacake?" countered Vince.

"What's _less_ classy than a teacake?" squinted Howard.

"Fish fingers and tomato ketchup trifle with spaghetti hoops for custard, on a burberry tablecloth?"

And so they carried on, planning and bickering, planning and bickering, ever since that fateful day in New York City, when Vince smiled at Howard over pizza and asked him to be his lawfully-wedded missus - his intention being, of course, to beat Howard to it, thus saving himself having to sit through a four-hour treatise on the virtues of matrimony - and Howard, having intended to propose himself, gladly accepted. In that time, the pair had found any number of things to disagree on. This was fine, of course, as a keen interest in vigourous post-disagreement lovemaking was most definitely one thing they had in common. As such, on this morning, they both felt it necessary to enjoy a hearty breakfast, after the previous night's, shall we say, vigorous activities.

"Have you given any thought to what you'll be wearing to the wedding?" asked Howard, chewing on a buttery slice of Soreen.

Vince shot him an exasperated look, rolling his eyes and returning his attentions to his bowl of porridge (enriched, of course, with rainbow sprinkles and jelly tots).

"Of course," sighed Howard. "how silly of me. And what have you decided on?"

"Well, see, I've got it narrowed it down to a shortlist," said Vince, presenting Howard with a stack of papers the thickness of a metropolitan telephone directory.

"That's not a shortlist, Vince," said Howard, lowering his gaze at his sparkling groom-to-be, "that's the itemized inventory of your wardrobe that I helped you compile last week."

"Plus a few choice pieces I've had my eye on in Topshop," grinned Vince, idly stirring his porridge about in his bowl. "_Plus_ a few conceptual sketches of things I might give a go on the sewing machine."

"So... you haven't narrowed it down at all," said Howard, splashing a touch of milk into his tea.

"What'd you expect?" giggled Vince, shovelling in a mouthful of rainbow mush.

"You might be interested to know that I've already decided on what I'll be wearing," said Howard, chomping down on a mouthful of buttery malt loaf.

"This ought to be good," said Vince, raising an eyebrow.

"I was thinking just a simple corduroy - "

"Ugh!" interjected Vince, making exaggerated vomit faces.

" - in triumphant portobello, with an understated tweed - "

"Nope."

" - vest in angry squirrel, and - "

"Just, no."

" - a pair of simple sandals with - "

"Howard?"

"What," sighed Howard, setting down the remaining crust-end of his loaf.

"Why don't you let me take care of both our outfits?" suggested Vince. "I think I could come up with something that would really work for you."

"Nope," Howard shook his head gravely, "absolutely not."

"Howard," said Vince. "I need you to trust me."

"Nope," replied Howard.

"Just trust me, Howard. Please," pleaded Vince, taking Howard's hands in his own. "You can't get married in flamboyant mushroom, or whatever. Just trust me on this. I won't let you down."

Howard let out a deep breath. "Fine," he aquiesced, facepalming.

"You won't regret this," beamed Vince.

"Then why do I already suspect I will?" mumbled Howard.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N**: This has nothing to do with my rage at most of Topshop's SS11 failure, no. But the FW11 preview tells me things are looking up. As in JUMPERS WITH SQUIRRELS ON THEM looking up. Yeah baby.

Howard squinted with such intensity of concentration that his eyes nearly disappeared entirely.

"You should be more enthusiastic, Little Man," he said. "We got here first! You made us queue outside of Topshop for the past five hours just so we'd be the first in the doors when they opened. Nobody was going to beat Vince Noir to the sales, you said."

And indeed, nobody had. Vince had woken Howard up no later than four hours after they had fallen asleep, with a rucksack full of sweets, two collapsible chairs, and a thermos full of hot tea, and insisted that they depart for Topshop immediately, if he was to take full advantage of the new collection being unveiled that morning.

"I know," sighed Vince, poking idly at the sleeve of a woolly jumper. "It's just... nothing here really appeals to me. It's all meaningless."

"Right," Howard nodded slowly, distancing himself slightly from Vince, backing into a rack of strapless wide-leg playsuits. "I don't know who you are, or what you've done to Vince, but I demand that you vacate his body immediately and restore his consciousness."

"I _am_ Vince, you berk," replied Vince, rolling his eyes.

"I'm going to have to ask you to prove your identity, sir," said Howard, scrutinizing Vince's face for signs for deception.

"Okay," said Vince, thinking just as hard as his little brain cell could, "first record album you ever bought was _A Bing Crosby Christmas_."

"Too easy," said Howard, shaking his head, "something no one else could know about?"

"In that case," grinned Vince, "what about that time when we were fourteen and I caught you with that clarinet having - "

"A moment, yes," interrupted Howard, flushing beetroot red.

"I was going to say a big filthy wank," corrected Vince.

"Thank you, Vince," said Howard, clearing his throat, "I think I can safely say you're you."

"And then there was that time on our school trip to the natural history museum, with you and the - "

"That's... enough confirmation, Little Man," said Howard, while Vince endeavoured to stifle a giggle. "You're... definitely you, all right. Now what's the matter?"

"Oh Howard, you wouldn't understand, but look at this shit," moaned Vince, flopping down cross-legged on the floor on a pile of turquoise crochet vests, in between two racks of plaid button-ups. "It's just that they've gone all wrong. I saw a whole shelf of floral bike shorts back there, _why_?"

"Oh, I don't know if it's all that bad," said Howard, crouching in beside his friend and laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. "This one's a very nice plaid, don't you think?"

Vince sniffled, taking Howard's hand, and blotting his eyes on his sleeve. "It's nice of you to say so, but don't you know that your approval is basically a death sentence for anything fashionable?"

"I approve of you," said Howard, "mostly."

"Yeah, but that's different," said Vince with a sad smile. "I still wouldn't be caught in any of this shit. Did you see the second floor? It looks like they raided my nan's wardrobe for inspiration. This isn't cool, it can't be. Or, oh no, what if it _is_ cool, and the fact that I don't like any of it means _I'm_ not cool anymore? I don't want to live in a world where I'm not cool, Howard. The whole universe has gone wrong!"

"Vince?" said Howard.

"What?" said Vince, clutching in panic at Howard's lapels.

"Breathe, Little Man. Nobody's cooler than you, for fuck's sake," Howard tried very hard not to roll his eyes. "Why not make something to wear to the wedding? You've said yourself you're a whiz on the sewing machine."

"You're right, Howard, I will," said Vince, his voice teeming with purpose and resolve. "And it won't have fringed suede sleeves and a camel turtleneck! Get me out of here, I think I'm going into anaphylactic shock! I see tweed!"

Howard chose to say nothing, but sighed heavily as he carried his wheezing mate out into the relatively untainted air of Oxford Street.

Dan Ashcroft - scathing cultural critic, semi-acclaimed author, friend to Howard and Vince, and notorious cuddly grumpypants - was squinting at a blob on a swishy black and white television screen. Was that bit there a leg? The technician had told them that that squiggly bit was the baby's head, but for all he could tell, it may well have been some extreme close-up footage of a prawn that someone had shot on their phone.

"Looks like some kind of lizard!" exclaimed his partner Jones, beaming with enthusiasm and squeezing Dan's hand. This was when Dan's telephone rang. He excused himself, and stepped into the corridor.

"Hello?" he said.

"All right, Dan!" giggled the voice on the other end.

"Hi... Vince?" squinted Dan.

"Can I ask you something really important?" asked Vince.

"Uhh, sure," shrugged Dan.

"Dan, will you be my bridesmaid?" asked Vince.

"Nope. No. Absolutely not," said Dan, without hesitation.

"What do you mean, no?" asked Vince, audibly dejected.

"Vince, I am not being your bridesmaid," sighed Dan.

"But I'm being your baby's fairy godfather!" protested Vince.

"Just... godfather," corrected Dan. "Not fairy. No stupid magic wands, no stupid fairy wings, but we might ask you and Howard to babysit."

"Fine. Not bridesmaid, then. Groomsmaid?" ventured Vince.

"Nothing _maid_, all right?" said Dan.

"But you're going to come to the wedding, aren't you?" asked Vince.

"Of course we are, but - "

"Look, all you have to do is stand there and look handsome," protested Vince.

"Listen, I can't really talk right now, so, uhh, fine," shrugged Dan.

"Genius, Dan! I'll talk to you later, cheers!" Dan could practically feel the glow of Vince's elated smile radiating from his phone as he pocketed it, and returned to the room, where he was met with the sight of Jones pumping his fists in the air and a pair of headphones strapped to a pregnant belly, and the faint sound of beats flowing through the air.

Dan was fairly certain this was not normal procedure at these sorts of appointments.

"What's - " Dan squinted.

"Check it out, babe! The kid's pulling little babyshapes in the womb!" exclaimed Jones. Dan carefully navigated his way around the various furniture and machines in the room, and back to Jones' side.

"You're still going to have to keep it down when the kid moves in with us though, you know that," said Dan.

"Yeah, I know," laughed Jones, snaking an arm around Dan's waist. "How are you going to sleep with all that quiet?"

"I'll manage," shrugged Dan. "Vince Noir wants me to be his groomsmaid."

It was all Jones could do to suppress an explosion of giggles.

"That is brilliant, babe," he beamed. "You gonna do it?"

"Uhh, I said yes," mumbled Dan.

"It'll be massive, babe," said Jones. "Just don't let him make you wear a swishy dress."

"He wouldn't," Dan sounded as though he were trying to convince himself as much as anyone else.

"Nah," agreed Jones. "Might suit you though, with your legs? Well sexy."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N**: First person to get the not-so-subtle movie reference gets a cookie!

The engagement party was most definitely the place to be that evening. Of all the places one could have been, the engagement party was by far and away the placiest of all of them. So full of place, it was. Vince had even talked Howard into wearing closed-toed shoes.

The venue was packed tighter than the coach cabin on a ten-hour transatlantic flight, and full of all of Howard and Vince's nearest and dearest, and of course, all the Camden elite, celebrating one last hurrah before their hero was forever off the market. (And that was definitely why they'd come, reasoned Vince, and not at all because he'd deliberately chosen the party's venue to be the place where pretty much everyone who mattered went out of a Saturday night anyway.) Vince was about to get another round in, when he was approached by a pretty, smallish woman with ginger bunches in a loud floral orange pinafore, an unfortunate woolly brown cardigan, and slightly oversized utility boots. She smiled sweetly at him.

"Hiya," she blushed, her tortoiseshell cat-eye spectacles slipping slightly down the bridge of her nose.

"All right," smiled Vince.

"So," she fluttered her eyelashes, tripping slightly over her boots as she failed to lean nonchalantly against the bar. "Umm, I'm Agnes."

"I'm Vince Noir," smiled Vince. "Nice to meet you."

"Vince," she said, desperately avoiding Vince's friendly gaze, shuffling her feet. "I think I'm in love with you. Do you think we could maybe live happily ever after?"

"Aww, I know where you're coming from, but look, everyone fancies me! It's my superpower. I'm the Confuser," replied Vince, with sweeping sexually ambiguous hand gestures.

"Oh, yeah but, do you think we could maybe be in love? Only it'd be really helpful if we were," she smiled awkwardly.

"Yeah, I don't think that's how it works," said Vince, furrowing his brow in deep thought, as if he were trying to work out if that _was_ how it worked.

"Thing is, see, I'm a mermaid," she continued, clutching Vince's hands in her own. "I've been granted human legs for one night, that I may find my true love. If my true love rejects me, I'll be banished to the frozen seas of the Arctic forever, to spend all of eternity alone."

"Oh, Agnes, that's well sad, but I can't be your true love," Vince shrugged apologetically, with a sad smile.

"But it's you, I'm sure of it," said Agnes, desperation creeping into the timbre of her voice.

"I can't be, though! I'm already in love," said Vince, "with him."

Vince gestured in the direction of Howard, who was attempting to impress a small circle of disaffected hipsters with his interpretive dance moves.

"Him?" squinted Agnes. "Really?"

"Yeah, I am," he smiled, losing himself slightly in a moment of schmoopy affection. "Listen, have you tried anybody else? What about, I don't know, that guy?"

Vince gesticulated vaguely in the direction of the far end of the bar.

"Oh my God... that's it. He's the one! Thanks, Vince," she smiled.

Agnes kissed him softly on the cheek, then left him for a solitary figure opposite them, shrouded in darkness and sipping a glass of Baileys.

It was well into the wee hours of the morning when Howard and Vince crashed back into their bedroom after the party. Highlights of the festivities included Bob Fossil's cringe-inducing interpretive dance (which apparently was his way of explaining that that was why he was the Owner of a Lonely Heart), Naboo's heartfelt toast to the happy couple (which went something like "Don't expect me to pay you two ballbags for the week you're taking off to go on honeymoon"), and, of course, Vince's outfit. Vince's outfits were invariably the highlight of any occasion. Vince's outfit was an occasion in itself.

"Good party, Howard?" asked Vince, curling into a supple mirrorball on top of the duvet, like a sexually enthusiastic kitten, only a lot less wrong than that sounds, come to think of it.

"Very good," slurred Howard, rolling gracelessly on the bed and proceeding to maul Vince with uncharacteristic cider-fuelled confidence. "Mmm, happy engagement."

"Happy engagement," giggled Vince, squirming ticklishly.

Vince rolled Howard onto his back, blanketing him in messy kisses along his jawline, then his neck, and his collarbone, working his way downward as he slowly unburdened Howard of his somewhat unfortunately brown shirt.

"Oh, Vincey, Vincey," moaned Howard, writhing in blurry pleasure.

When Vince's hands reached Howard's waistline, his face flushed with embarrassment.

"Uh, Vince," he began, in an attempt to stop Vince from continuing, but Vince ventured southward undaunted.

"Well, hello there, you sexual dinosaur," he began, unzipping Howard. It was then that he glanced up, puzzled. "Everything all right?"

"Something's wrong," Howard looked completely and utterly terrified. "My... wankel rotary engine won't... you know, turn over."

Vince had never seen Howard so unabashedly frightened by anything before. Even the time Vince threatened to flush his mint-condition copy of Willie "Jazz Hands" Anderson's extremely rare _Jazz Hands Feel Up San Francisco_ LP down the toilet paled in comparison to this.

"For fuck's sake, it's all right Howard, you've had a long night and a lot to drink, it's normal" shrugged Vince with a sympathetic smile.

"But what if it's broken?" exclaimed Howard, his brow furrowed with concern. "Please still marry me, I've got so much to give!"

"You're just too drunk to fuck, you prinkle. Get a good night's sleep and we'll pick up where we left off in the morning, all right?" Vince rolled his eyes and kicked out of his jumpsuit, snuggling himself down under the duvet.

"Yeah, I guess so," sighed Howard, sitting up, his shoulders slumped forward in defeat. "I'm just going to go get a glass of water before bed."

"All right love," mumbled Vince, rolling over into tipsy slumber.

He was fast asleep and dreaming of a graham cracker canoe trip through a marsh made from marshmallows when Howard swaggered back into bed, abruptly pulling him back into the world of the waking.

"Hello beautiful," he murmured, nuzzling into Vince's hair, his hands sliding under the duvet.

"Go to sleep, Howard," moaned Vince. "It'll be fine. We'll have a proper shag in the morning."

"Howard Moon, sexual dynamo, is not so easily thwarted," protested Howard, fingers tracing lightly over Vince's ribcage. "I'm an animal, baby."

"Yeah, you're like the love-child of a bear and a bunny rabbit mating with a peacock," observed Vince.

"I'll have you know, sir, that I can ride you like a noble stallion," said Howard, gesturing emphatically.

"What, with your sweet little twitchy face? I _don't_ think," scoffed Vince. "Hey, what's that in your hand?"

Before Howard could protest, Vince snatched the object from him, turning to the light of the window to get a proper look at it. Vince squinted at the object, a small plastic bottle with one of those stupid safety lids he could never sort out how to circumvent, which bore the label:

BOOTS

FAST-ACTING PRIAPETAMOL

48 TABLETS FOR THE PRICE OF 36

NOW WITH ADDED OWL BEAKS

"Owl beaks?" squinted Vince, allowing the sudden realization of the significance of said bird parts to wash over him. "Oh Howard, you didn't raid Naboo's magic cabinet for stiffy pills, did you? Have you taken any of these?"

"I… I was about to," mumbled Howard.

Normally, Vince was not against the idea of a little sexy magic or an enhancing spell or two – not that Naboo would let either of them near the magic cabinet in his room when he was in – but erections were serious business, and not something to be meddled with lightly.

"Did you even read the side effects of these things?" asked Vince, turning the bottle over in his hands. "'May cause: drowsiness, delayed irritability, insomnia, priapism' - guess that more or less goes without saying - 'oily discharge, glossolalia, persistent bioluminescence, frequent urination, dry mouth, facial paralysis, and wings.' Wings? That could be quite cool, actually. I've always wanted to see what I'd look like with wings."

"All right, all right, I get it," sighed Howard, blushing as red as someone who has just ingested 564372894.1 Scotch bonnets.

"Good," said Vince. "And remember, your flappy paddle gearbox -"

"Wankel rotary engine," interjected Howard.

"Your _penis_ is fine," Vince continued. "We'll get up in the morning, have loads of really brilliant sexual times, and then make pancakes in our pyjamas. It'll be well genius!"

"Yeah, it will be," said Howard, waggling his eyebrows flirtatiously.

"Yeah, it will be," Vince rolled his eyes. "Night, Howard."

"Night Vince," said Howard, snuggling down. "Uhh, listen, I -"

but he stopped, and smiled to himself instead, as Vince had already fallen back asleep.

"Vince Noir, I'll love you 'til the day I die," he whispered, and closed his eyes for the night.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N**: Hey, special guest stars! I always wondered what Leroy looked like. It turns out he looks like Olly Ralfe. Thus:

The next morning found Howard (in his beige pyjamas with the brown stripe, matching robe, and slippers) and Vince (in a threadbare and several-sizes-too-small Kiss tshirt, red y-fronts, and odd socks) in the kitchen, mixing up enough pancakes to feed a small army, singing to themselves as they went.

"See? What did I tell you?" beamed Vince.

"Yep, you win," conceded Howard.

"So, aren't you glad you waited? Who needs priapetamol?" asked Vince with a cheeky wink, giving Howard a sound pat on the bottom. Howard jumped.

"Certainly not Howard Moon, no sir," proclaimed Howard. "I'm the most sexual man that ever had sex, don't you know. My sexual dynamism is the stuff of legend!"

"It's not really legend if you and I are the only ones who know about it, though, is it?" squinted Vince.

"I guess, but - "

"Though I guess Naboo and Bollo would kind of know about it too?" Vince was thinking very, very hard. "I mean, what with them pounding on the bedroom door and shouting at us to keep it down?"

"Not exactly subtle in the throes of passion, are you, Little Man?" grinned Howard.

"_Me_, unsubtle? What about you?" asked Vince, miming sexy motions with his hands. "'Oh, Vince, don't stop! Harder Little Man, I think I'm arriving!'"

Howard facepalmed at Vince's impression of his apparent arrival-face.

Meanwhile, in Naboo's room, Naboo took a long drag off of a joint that was very nearly as big as he was.

"Fuck's sake, they're at it again," he moaned, passing the impressive spliff to Bollo.

"This mean Bollo going to have to disinfect the whole kitchen while you cast industrial-strength cleansing spell again?" asked Bollo.

"Probably best be on the safe side, yeah," nodded Naboo.

"Ugh, not again," sighed Bollo. "Last time, whole flat smelled like pine-fresh chemicals for a week. Get migraines from that shit like bloody fuck. I've got a bad feeling about this."

Meanwhile, Howard and Vince were in fact not doing anything in the kitchen that would require anything more than soaking some dishes in sudsy water when they were done.

"You coming to look at bridesmaid's dresses for Dan and Leroy?" asked Vince, heaping a generous dollop of strawberry jam onto his pancakes.

"Lester Corncrake's coming round after breakfast," said Howard, spreading a thin whisper of butter onto each of his plateful of golden rounds. "He wants to show me a new record he's added to his collection, promises to be some pretty hot jazz. Says he wants to show me some dance moves for the wedding reception."

"Lester Cornflakes?" exclaimed Vince, nearly choking on his food. "But he's a blind, disembodied head! What's he going to show you , the Viennese sit-there-not-moving? The West Coast bump-into-things?"

"His body grew back," replied Howard.

"Well, that's creepy," grimaced Vince. "But he'd better not lead you to embarrass us at the reception."

"Lester happens to be one of the nation's foremost authorities on jazz," countered Howard. "The man does know music."

"He's not a foremost authority on anything, Howard," counter-countered Vince. "He's a complete weirdo and he's got that... old man smell."

"Yeah, maybe," admitted Howard with a heavy sigh, carefully slicing himself a wedge of pancake. "But I think I'm pretty much his only friend."

Vince's expression softened.

"That's really sweet of you, Howard," he said, grasping Howard's hand in his own. "But try and get him to clear off before the lads and I get back from shopping, yeah? He makes me well squirrely."

"So, what's Howard's excuse?" asked Dan, as he walked with Vince to Costa.

"He's busy being well boring," chuckled Vince. "Lester Cornflakes is coming round to do jazz with him."

"What, is he made of cornflakes?" squinted Dan incredulously.

"Course not," smiled Vince. "_That'd_ be cool."

Dan nodded awkwardly.

"Lester Cornflakes just smells like basement," said Vince, taking Dan's arm as they crossed the street.

Leroy had been friends with Howard and Vince for nearly forever - since Vince was a swaggering, shaggy-haired teenager, with his school tie untied and his top three shirt buttons unbuttoned, and Howard was a spotty, sloping beanpole, buttons meticulously done up, tie perfectly tied.

These days, more often than not, Leroy wore an apron, and smelled of freshly burnt espresso. A mop of dark curls nearly but not quite obscured his bright blue eyes, which easily rivalled Vince's in their size and intensity - though he would certainly never dare say so. He had always lived with the implicit assumption that Howard and Vince were a couple - lovers, boyfriend and boyfriend, whatever - and so the dull surprise he registered when Vince announced to him at they were engaged was the dull surprise of someone who assumed they were more or less married already.

"I gotta go Aziz, I'll see you later!" he shouted as he exited the shop, a tray of cups in hand, and joined Vince and Dan on the street.

"That's coming out of your pay," shouted the young man behind the front counter. "Those drinks aren't free, mate!"

"Don't mind Aziz, guys," laughed Leroy, handing drinks to Dan and Vince (a large black coffee and a hazelnut double-sweet iced latte with extra whipped cream and caramel drizzle, respectively).

"He's nineteen or something and just because he's 'technically' my 'supervisor,' he's always like 'Oi Leroy, those biscuits are for paying customers,' and 'Leroy, that baguette is not a cricket bat,' and 'Leroy, stop fellating the whipped cream gun.' Kid needs to lighten up, yeah?" Leroy shrugged.

"Sounds well dismal," Vince moaned in sympathy.

"Then there was that time I tried to get a game of frisbee going with a caramel wafer and he went fucking ballistic," said Leroy. "I mean, be fair, only other people in the shop were that gang of nanas who sit in the corner playing mah jong and gathering dust all day and don't buy anything. Everybody hates them. So who gives a shit?"

"He sounds like a massive wanker," laughed Vince.

"Yeah, but it's a living, ain't it?" shrugged Leroy. "All right lads, let's shop!"

"I can't believe I'm doing this," muttered Dan, cigarette clenched tightly between his lips.

"Aww, you love it," giggled Vince, sipping playfully on his ludicrously sugary iced latte. "You're going to look brilliant, trust me! You know I know that under that gruff exterior, you actually clean up real good, Ashcroft!"

Dan was the one friend who could make Vince blush. It was a silly reflex, he knew, but perhaps it was because Dan disliked so many things, that when he liked something, it mattered more than all the others. And Dan liked Vince.

That was nice.

Dan even liked Vince enough to be dragged around by him and his weird friend to bizarre shops he never knew existed to try on waistcoats and feign interest at capes and probably mostly smoke. Jones was meeting up with him after his afternoon gig at Stanley Knives, and they had planned to stock up on teeny tiny trainers and little footie pyjamas with ducks and lorries on them for their forthcoming baby. In other words, Dan had somehow agreed to approximately twelve hours of uninterrupted shopping.

Dan was desperately trying to trace back in his mind to the precise point in time where he had clearly gone completely wrong.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N**: I'm slightly miffed that won't let me include the illustrations for this chapter. This chapter is meant to have illustrations. Grumble.

"I've got something really special for you, Howard," said Lester Corncrake, noted jazz-fancier, brandishing an especially dusty LP. Howard sneezed. "The only copy known to exist of Larry 'Toast Soldier' Corrigan's fabled _Bebop Breakfast_ album."

"You're going to give me a dance lesson to _Bebop Breakfast_?" stuttered Howard in jazz-fanboy disbelief.

"Believe it, Howard," nodded Lester. "You are about to be witness to one of the greatest, rarest jazz recordings of all time. Strap on your jazz goggles, baby."

The speakers crackled, hissed, and popped in response to the sensitive needle's journey over the near-pristine vinyl. The two men sat in reverent silence as they waited for the music to begin. It began with a saxophone solo. A very familiar saxophone solo, thought Howard, but he attempted to dispel the thought. It was not long, however, before the truth became painfully clear.

"You know, this isn't as bebop as I seem to remember, when I played with old Toast Soldier back in '59," observed Lester, listening intently.

"Uhh, that's because this is _Careless Whisper_," cringed Howard.

"You sure this isn't _Blue Rondo a la Burnt Toast_?" asked Lester, straining against the sound of George Michael's soulful vocals.

"Definitely _Careless Whisper_," said Howard.

"Well, nuts," said Lester, snapping his fingers in defeat. "One of them hooligans at the record store's gone and played a prank on me! Guess I can't show you any of my groovy jazz moves then."

"Sorry Lester," shrugged Howard sadly.

"Though I suppose..." said Lester, stroking his chin thoughtfully, "there _is_ the business of you're gonna have to kiss that girlfriend of yours, and I don't suppose you'll have got a lot of practice with that either, so I could show you - "

"That... really won't be necessary," interrupted Howard, flustered. "I think that's one thing I definitely don't need lessons for."

Arguably - not even arguably, _factually_ - the best bit of doing a big shop was lunch. And so the three intrepid lads – some more intrepid than others – waddled into a small eatery, laden with shopping bags.

"Uhh, Vince, just because you're having a gay wedding doesn't mean we have to turn into women," grumbled Dan, as they seated themselves in the obnoxiously girly tea room that Vince had chosen for lunch.

(Leroy thought it was funny.)

"Hey, nothing girly about the jacket we picked out for you for the wedding. Or the matching braces. Besides, nothing about fairy cakes says you have to be a woman to eat them, either" countered Vince. "Look, one of them's got little frosting bumblebees on it. What's girly about bumblebees? Most bumblebees are miserable bastards, in real life."

Dan sighed, and said nothing.

"So I thought that after lunch we could check out Todd the giraffe's new London boutique," said Vince, plucking the delicate sugar blossom from the top of his fairy cake. "I hear it's well genius."

"Oh really?" asked Dan, immediately regretting having done so.

"See, it all started when Todd met this Canadian bear named Maria," said Vince. "They met in a reverse bikram yoga class – that's where you do yoga in a really, really cold room – and it turns out they got on brilliantly! But Todd's mates reckoned that it wouldn't be long before he realized that one of the foremost authorities on menswear had nothing in common with a small brown bear from the Canadian Rockies. She didn't even _wear_ clothes, how could it possibly work out between them?"

"But Todd's a giraffe, he doesn't wear clothes either," observed Dan, poking at his cake's lavender frosting.

"Todd became a clothes-wearing giraffe pretty soon after business took off – how could he not want to wear his own genius designs?" shrugged Vince.

"Also, why does _that_ plothole bother me more than the logistics of a bear mating with a giraffe?" mumbled Dan.

"Because that's personal, Dan. I didn't ask," eyerolled Vince.

"Of course," said Dan.

"I mean, I have my theories," added Vince, with a lascivious nod. "Anyway, turns out Todd and Maria ended up getting married, and they're really happy together; who would have thought it, right? And Maria's got these preternatural superpowers when it comes to managing business – "

"Even though she was born and raised in a forest," interjected Dan.

"_I_ was born and raised in a forest, Dan," said Vince.

"And are you good at business management?" asked Dan.

"Nah, I'm a bit simple," smiled Vince. "But Maria's an absolute genius at it! So she takes care of managing the business, while Todd handles the creative end of it. It's perfect!"

"Right," nodded Dan. "So, the moral of the story is that sometimes two very different people can fall in love and turn out to be perfect for each other in spite of their differences, kind of like how some people might not 'get' you and Howard, but you love each other very much."

Vince blinked.

"Actually, I just brought it up because it was apparently Maria's idea to open a boutique in London," he said, peeling back the pale blue paper of another cake.

Meanwhile, Howard - not _quite_ ready to trust Vince's sartorial judgment - had enlisted Bollo to help in his search for what on earth he was going to wear to the wedding.

"What about this one?" asked Howard, flipping to the next swatch in his book of corduroys.

"Not so much, Harold," said Bollo, shaking his head gravely.

"_Howard_," sighed Howard.

"Howard," shrugged Bollo. "That brown wash you right out, make your eyes look well swampy."

"You've said that about the last five swatches, Bollo," moaned Howard. "Look, if you're bored, just say so."

"Cheers Harold," said Bollo, patting Howard on the shoulder and standing. "Bollo going to go play tetris and listen to happy hardcore."

"Fine," sighed Howard, flipping idly through his catalogue of browns.

It was shortly after Bollo left - and Howard could just hear the thumping strains of obnoxious electronic glee from Bollo's room down the corridor - that Vince rolled in, looking thoroughly blissful, basking in the afterglow of a good day's shopping.

"Have a good shop, Little Man?" asked Howard.

"Oh Howard, it was genius! You don't know what you were missing," said Vince, his eyes gazing off into his little dreamland of vintage boots and cake.

"Found something ridiculous for the wedding, I take it?" asked Howard, attempting a surreptitious peek at Vince's impressive haul.

"Nah, that's still looking hopeless," Vince frowned.

"Then what's all this?" puzzled Howard, eyeing the seemingly endless array of bags strewn about the room.

"Oh yeah, turns out I needed these," smiled Vince.

Howard sighed. Of course Vince needed all this. As far as Howard was concerned, all they needed was each other, a lifetime supply of tea, and a stack of jazz records. But Vince was not such a man of simple pleasures. Even if he was, you know, simple.

(Vince, on the other hand, thought that Howard was not as complicated a man as he thought he was, but that there was something comforting in the way he smelled a little like black tea and antique books, though he would likely never say so.)

Howard was uncertain how long he had been lost in his philosophical reverie, but when he surfaced, it became evident that Vince had been excitedly sharing an anecdote about his day for some time.

"… almost fist-fought a ten-year-old girl over a pair of drainpipes!" he exclaimed. "Dan had to drag her off me; she was vicious, all fangs and claws, it was awful! That's how I got the bruise, anyway. Then after lunch, we stopped at that market across from the tube station, and we ran into Henry, you know, the osprey, the one with the voice just like that bloke off the _Dragon's Den_? Turns out he's moved to Rutland because of his allergy to breakfast cereal…"

As he listened to Vince's story, Howard squeezed his way in between the plentiful shopping to snuggle in beside Vince, sneaking an arm around him. Vince nestled into his side, never stopping his endless stream of conversation.

"… then we met up with Jones, who stopped to pick up some teeny-tiny dungarees after his gig, and apparently he found this nappy bag that also has a pocket for his LPs, and a special clip on the inside for hanging your headphones. It's well brilliant. But how was your day?" asked Vince.

"It was all right, yeah," nodded Howard. "Lester came round, we got into some serious grooves, it was pretty dynamite stuff."

"Genius," said Vince sleepily. "I'm dying for a tea, how about you?"

"That'd be lovely," murmured Howard.

"Brilliant," beamed Vince, affixing a tender kiss to Howard's cheek. "Cheers, love."

"I'll make it then, shall I?" sighed Howard, padding off to the kitchen.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N**: It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you, there's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.

This was not the stag do that Vince had envisioned. He had envisioned flashing lights, mountains of sweets, a huge throng of admirers, then probably getting completely blotto on flirtinis, feeling up a girl in a neon miniskirt, and stripping naked in Trafalgar Square loudly shouting about blessing the rains down in Africa.

_That_ was not the stag do that Howard had envisioned. Howard had envisioned a cavernous jazz club lit by candles, drinking wine, whiskey, and beer. He had envisioned a night of improvised jazz and spoken word with his nearest and dearest and a handful of Europe's leading jazz musicians, all greatly impressed by his mad skills on his clarinet. If things got really swinging, he thought he might even bust out the bassoon.

But neither of them had envisioned wearing paper party hats at a tapas restaurant with Mr. and Mrs. Moon (Howard's mother and father, who had made the arduous journey down from the wildnerness of Yorkshire), Leroy, and his new girlfriend Marva - at least Leroy said he was _fairly_ sure that was her name - who was on a student visa from the Netherlands and, as far as any of them could tell, spoke no English.

"How exactly do you two communicate?" asked Howard. "You don't speak Dutch, Leroy."

"We don't need words, we have the language of love," said Leroy with a cheeky grin. Marva smiled uncomfortably, shifting a few inches further from him in her chair.

"There's so much love in this room," enthused Mrs. Moon, her many loud bangles clattering loudly against each other as she reached for a helping of _patatas bravas_. "You know, Howard, your father and I always had a feeling this would happen."

"Really?" asked Howard.

"Well, ever since you came home from school that one day and told us you met a new friend named Vince," said Mrs. Moon, tucking her greying ginger curls out of the way of her obtrusive abstract earrings, "and then told us that one day you were going to get married and become famous explorers."

"The traffic on the M1 was as you'd expect this time of year, especially once we hit Milton Keynes," said Mr. Moon, poking at a plate of some kind of meat. "Is this Cumberland sausage?"

"It's chorizo, Mr. Moon," said Leroy, as Marva idly nibbled at some goat cheese and gazed wistfully at the door.

Mr. and Mrs. Moon were, not surprisingly, geography teachers: Mr. Moon sported a proud moustache that would intimidate even the most unruly of students, and Mrs. Moon wore the sort of loud yet soft fabrics one might have more readily expected on an art professor. It was not hard to see where Howard got his, well, anything from.

Vince sighed, leaning into Howard's shoulder. "Not exactly what I had in mind for tonight, Howard," he whispered, arranging the caramelized onions and ham on his plate into a somewhat stylized portrait of Howard.

"Me either," whispered Howard. "I couldn't exactly say no to dinner, could I? They're my parents! They're two out of the three people in the world who think I'm special!"

"Aww, Howard, I'm number three, aren't I?" blushed Vince.

"Well, you do, don't you?" ventured Howard, somewhat tentatively.

"Course I do, you muppet," giggled Vince, batting Howard playfully on the arm.

"Then there was that time we called you on your thirtieth birthday and you still had yet to mention ever having a serious girlfriend," Mrs. Moon continued, gesticulating somewhat dangerously with her forkful of eggplant. "I mean, we always knew you were something of a late bloomer, love, but needless to say, we had our suspicions that you were probably, you know, a homosexualist. So tell me, how long have you and Vince actually been having intimacy?"

"That's… very personal, Mum," said Howard, sinking ever further into his chair and blushing like 546437981.2 large jars of _pimentón._

"It's a perfectly natural question," she reasoned. "Sex is a perfectly natural act. Your father and I have sex; how do you think we made you? As a matter of fact, last month we decided to start experimenting with – "

"You'll probably want to stop now, Mrs. Moon," said Vince, placing a comforting hand on Howard's arm. "We don't want Howard to have to cover his ears and start drowning out the conversation with improvised jazz."

"So," said Mr. Moon, turning to Marva, "I understand that you're from the Netherlands, Mrs. Leroy. You must have some very interesting anecdotes about canals."

Marva pointed to Leroy, said something in what was probably Dutch, and shrugged in what was probably either annoyance or confusion.

"How soon can we leave?" Howard whispered into Vince's ear.

"Want me to cover for you?" Vince replied. "Just say you have to go to the toilet and make a break for it. I'll use my cunning persuasion to keep everyone from suspecting! They don't call me The Persuader for nothing."

"Who calls you The Persuader?" squinted Howard.

"You know, important people," shrugged Vince.

"But I can't abandon you, Little Man," whispered Howard. "It wouldn't be right."

"Don't worry about me, Howard, save yourself!" whispered Vince.

"You two whispering sweet nothings and shit?" cringed Leroy, pouring himself a large glass of wine. "That is well sweet. And gross. I've never been more uncomfortable than I am right now."

Howard blushed. "No, it's just… I just… I have to go to the toilet," he stammered, and ran out of the room.

"Oi Leroy, do you reckon Howard looked a bit poorly? I should probably go check on him," said Vince, smiling apologetically as he excused himself from the room.

When Howard and Vince had sprinted a safe distance from the restaurant, they allowed themselves a break, ducking into a narrow alley to catch their breaths.

"You know," observed Vince, "the others probably think we've snuck off for a cheeky shag in the toilets."

"No, no, no, no no, no, no, no, no no no, no, no no, no," said Howard. "I'm fine with my sexual prowess being the stuff of legend to the rest of the world, but to my parents, I would rather they didn't think of me as any kind of a... sexualist."

"It's all right," giggled Vince, pulling his mobile from his pocket, "I've got a plan. I'm texting Leroy to let him know that you had a bad reaction to the Cumberland sausage and I've taken you home for the night. It's foolproof! It's genius!"

"So now everyone thinks I have the pre-wedding shits?" asked Howard.

"You're right," cringed Vince. "I'll text him that the third stall from the door in the men's toilets is actually a gateway to a parallel dimension made entirely from corn and soft cushions, where everything runs on the energy generated by old hippies' brainstorms, and we're having a bit of a look round, watching a pair of oak trees play doubles against a two-headed dugong."

"Vince, that's ridiculous," sighed Howard. "Don't you think he'd just come investigate, if that were true?"

"Not likely," Vince winked, "Leroy's allergic to corn. Did you really tell your mum we were going to get married and be explorers?"

"I _was_ about six at the time, Vince," eyerolled Howard.

"Why didn't you say so ages ago? You know I've been in love with you for practically forever," said Vince, leading Howard home, arm in arm.

"Why didn't you?" asked Howard.

"All right," conceded Vince. "Now I feel a bit of a muppet. Took us fifteen whole years to live out your dreams!"

"Uhh, it's been more like nearly thirty years, Little Man," corrected Howard, eyeing Vince with suspicion.

"I think your math's a bit off there, Howard," chuckled Vince. "I'm twenty-one, so... yeah, fifteen years."

Howard nodded, choosing, for the sake of harmony, to hold his tongue.


	7. Chapter 7

Howard looked good. Like, really, _actually_ good. He wore a slim-cut - but not hipster-emaciated - suit in black with a grey waistcoat and matching bow tie, black patent brogues, and a red rose in his buttonhole. Somehow, the ensemble not only flattered his features, but looked, well, like _Howard_. And yet stylish. And there was not a trace of brown in sight. Vince swelled with pride at the success of his plan.

"Told you I'd take care of your outfit," grinned Vince.

"A bespoke suit, though, Little Man? I don't remember you taking my measurements," squinted Howard, tugging nervously at his shirt cuffs.

"Measured you in your sleep, silly," laughed Vince, adjusting Howard's tie.

"That _is_ a bit perverted, Little Man," said Howard. "Why didn't you just ask?"

"Where's the fun in that? Where's the element of surprise?" eyerolled Vince.

"And where are the potential erotic benefits of taking an inside leg measurement if I'm not awake to take full advantage of them?" asked Howard, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"I love you, Howard," beamed Vince. "Do you love your outfit?"

Howard sighed. "Yeah," he said. "Please don't gloat."

Everything was go. The day had come. Everyone who mattered was there: Mr. and Mrs. Moon had emerged from the wilderness of Leeds and come down to London the night before, Naboo's shaman council mates had flown in on their magic carpets, Dan and Jones had taken time out from babyproofing their home. Vince was busily putting finishing touches on his hair, guests were arriving, Dan Ashcroft was on his fifth pack of cigarettes, Leroy was preparing to live-tweet the event from his phone, and the shaman's council were busily imbibing every conceivable intoxicant (with the exception of Dennis, who was still suffering flashbacks from the last time he accidentally looked at a magic mushroom, and Kirk, who was six months sober following an unfortunate scandal which, due to a superinjunction the details of which cannot be revealed, we can only say involved a flying carpet, two cabinet ministers, a stack of old telephone directories, half a dozen cantaloupes, and a pheasant named Owen).

And there was Howard, cross-legged in an unobtrusive corner of the back garden. Jones found him quite by accident while searching for an outlet for one of his many extension cords. He knew the others would begin to wonder where Howard was pretty soon, if he did not make an appearance. An intervention was required.

"Howard," Jones ventured out cautiously, seating himself beside Howard. "What are you doing out here?"

"Just... making sure all the blades of grass in the back garden are in the right order," blustered Howard, feigning a sad attempt at counting them. Jones watched him skeptically, half smiling.

"You sure you're not just feeling a bit nervous?" he asked.

"Howard Moon doesn't do nervous," Howard protested, puffing himself up slightly as he spoke. "... and _that's_ 239,423 blades of grass, in the right order."

"Oh give over, Howard," said Jones, elbowing him lightly. "Course you're nervous. This is massive, what you're doing; it'd be weird if you weren't nervous."

"Right," agreed Howard. "It's a big day all right. A milestone. Life-changing. The universe will never be the same after - "

"Yeah, I don't think anything's actually going to be _that_ different," said Jones. "I mean, me and Dan, we've been together for ages, and it's just well normal, yeah? Don't think getting all in fancy dress and having cake one day's going to make everything get all weird, you know?"

Howard nodded mutely, fussing about with his cufflinks.

"Vince loves you, yeah?" Jones continued. "That look he gets when you're in the room, it's... you're going to be so happy. That and I spent like the last twelve hours remixing a new song for you two, and it's well romantic. So buck the fuck up and get back in there."

"I will," said Howard, straightening his jacket as he stood. Jones smiled, smoothing his hands lightly over Howard's lapels.

"Need any help music?" asked Jones, fishing a set of headphones out of his personal mess of wires.

"I think I'll be all right," said Howard. "Thanks, Jones."

All of the Camden elite were present for the event, dressed in their most splendid fashionable formalwear, but none were more splendid than Vince Noir himself: he appeared, arm-in-arm with Bryan Ferry (who had taken time out of his busy recording and touring schedule to give away the groom), carrying a bouquet of rare and precious mirrorball orchids (so precious that they bloomed only once every 647 years, four months, twelve days, nine hours, eleven minutes, and twenty-seven point four seconds), his glittering cape trailing behind him. Hushed whispers of awe were heard throughout the crowd gathered there.

"I've never seen anything so magnificent," said one, with a lifelike painting of an eagle ironically emblazoned across the back of her denim jacket.

"She's transplendent," said another, in a velour jumper featuring a large applique of a wolf.

"I think he's a boy," said the first one.

"Frankly, I don't care what it is, it's magical," said the other.

"That man looks like he comes from space," observed a bewildered man in lipstick, pointing at Vince. "Whose birthday is this?"

"Who gives a fuck?" mumbled a tall girl in fluorescent aerobics gear. "I am so fucking wasted."

Vince's outfit was beyond description: so much so that this narrator is questioning the futility of attempting to describe it. It is, however, this narrator supposes, the sacred duty of the narrator to do so. Thus: it looked as though all the stars in the sky had descended from their home in the heavens, and fashioned themselves into radiant the radiant garments draped over him, but he was yet still the most radiant of them all, shining with the blush of true love.

(True love, and the judicious use of Naboo's Miracle Wax.)

Howard stood at the front of the room, flanked by the groomsmaids, and behind them stood Gary Numan.

"So, we meet again, Ferry," said Gary Numan, as Bryan Ferry brought Vince to stand beside his bride-to-be.

"Oh, it's you, Numan," sneered Bryan Ferry.

"All right, Howard," blushed Vince.

"All right, Little Man," blushed Howard.

And there they blushed, oblivious to all the others present, for some minutes, until they were interrupted by Leroy.

"Uhh, guys," he said in _sotto voce_, leaning in close to Howard. "I think a fight's about to break out."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N**: *grabs bowl of popcorn, settles in to watch the fight*

Indeed, it appeared that certain tempers were beginning to flare at that end of the room. There stood Gary Numan and Bryan Ferry, practically shooting lasers out of their eyes at each other.

"Oh yeah?" shouted Gary Numan, his normally gentle brow furrowed in escalating rage. "Well at least _I_ didn't abandon my young ward on the mean streets of London so I could swan off and record _Avalon_, which was shit, by the way."

"Oh yeah? It's still a damn sight better than what you were recording at the time, Numan. You haven't put out a good record since 1979," retorted Bryan Ferry, hands balled into tight fists that burst into bright orange flames.

"Oh yeah? Well at least I don't need Kate fucking Moss to sell my records for me," snapped Gary Numan.

"At least I'm _selling_ records," eyerolled Bryan Ferry.

"Fuck you, Ferry, you fat fuck," spat Gary Numan.

"That's it," declared Bryan Ferry, "you've made me angry!"

The rest of the wedding guests fell silent, and watched in shock and horror as these two men stood facing each other at the altar, not gazing at each other lovingly, but in full-on Mortal Kombative fight stance, ready to unleash their fury. A booming voice thundered down from the heavens:

"THREE… TWO… ONE… FIGHT!" came the voice, as its words flashed through the air between them.

But before any laserbeams or fireballs, airplanes or hunting rifles could be unleashed, before either musican's green life-bar could be reduced to a sliver of red, Vince stepped in. Vince was not amused, not in the slightest.

"Fucking settle down, both of you!" he shouted, as the cloud of impending combat dissipated from the air, and in its place stood a pair of middle-aged men who both felt very, very silly. "This is _my_ day, not yours, and I'm not having you two fuck it up by being a couple of babies."

Bryan Ferry and Gary Numan stared sheepishly at the floor.

"Sorry," they said quietly.

Vince's features softened slightly, and he let his arms fall to his sides, shaking his head.

"Look, Howard and I really want you both to be here today, but not if you're going to upstage my outfit with your stupid differences," he said. "Think you can keep it together?"

"Yeah," said Bryan Ferry and Gary Numan, shuffling their feet.

"Let's get on with it, then," said Vince, his patience having worn down so threadbare that the threads were ready to disintegrate altogether.

Vince leaned in close to Howard, and whispered so none of the guests could hear:

"If you mention anything about cream, I'm leaving."

Howard glanced down at his stack of handwritten notecards sadly, and tossed them over his shoulder.

"Right," he sighed, allowing his shoulders to slump slightly forward.

Vince smiled at Howard. Howard coughed nervously, adjusting his shirt collar, which all of a sudden seemed much, much too snug.

"Ready, Howard?" asked Gary Numan.

"Yup, yes, I suppose. Not really, not at all," whispered Howard.

"Good," said Gary Numan, turning his gaze to address the guests gathered before them. "Well, since these two gentlemen - Howard Moon, and Vince Noir - have lots of things to say, or something, they've written their own vows, which thankfully means I don't have to say much. Howard, if you'd like to begin?"

Howard cleared his throat. Then he cleared it again. And again. And again. It sounded like he was having the most polite coughing fit the world had ever witnessed.

"Get on with it, you slag!" shouted Tony Harrison, inebriated and surly, which was a surprise to basically no one.

"Right," said Howard, bracing himself, as Vince looked on encouragingly. He turned to face the crowd, seated in their neat little rows and all looking on expectantly. "Since time immemorial, marriage has been a sacred institution, where..."

and no one can recall what was said after about this bit, except that he channelled some apparently intense emotions and pulled a lot of impressive faces (Faroese passion, Kentish sorrow, and Baltic stoicism, to name a few) and after what felt like about five hours, trailed off.

"Oh, cock," he said quietly, turning to Vince. "Vince Noir, I love you, you cloth-brained, superficial, lazy, beautiful, magical person. Let's just stay together forever, okay?"

"All right, Howard," giggled Vince, petting gently at Howard's soft hair. Howard blushed the precise shade of 5461970384252.9 pomegranate groves.

"Vince?" said Gary Numan.

"Right," Vince began. "Howard, you're a tweedy titbox and a corduroy prinkle, and you'd rather listen to jazz fusion than the Human League, which is well criminal. And for some reason, I'm in love with you. I love with with all my heart and my entire brain cell and my arms and my hair and my cock. Especially my cock. I've got a really nice cock, and it's a lot of fun. It's brilliant! What was I saying? Oh yeah, Howard. You're genius. All right, you've got the dress sense of a blind marmoset, but I just don't ever want to be with anyone else. Sorry everybody!"

He gave the crowd an apologetic shrug. The sound of men and women quietly sobbing could be heard as far away at Ladbroke Grove.

"Hey Howard, remember that time we rescued those dolphins from extinction with the power of song?" he winked at his blushing groom. Howard squinted.

"Uhh, Vince, I don't think this is really the - "

but Vince's smile was all the convincing Howard needed.

"Down in the ocean, swimming with the dolphins, sailing into space on a rocketship, rocketship, rocketship, boom, boom. Helicopter baby, won't you help us fly around? Parachute, jammy fruit, biscuits and ice cream clouds. Fizzy jelly motorcar, running in the carpark. Fizzy jelly motorcar, running in the supermarket. Fizzy jelly motorcar, running down the aisle, walking down the aisle, wedding day. Two voices, beating as one. Boom, boom."

They stood with heads bowed, hands over each other's hearts, as the crowd gaped in perplexed awe. An awkward silence fell over the room for what felt like several eternities, before one awestruck hipster burst into spontaneous applause, and the other guests followed suit. Vince beamed, gathering Howard into his arms.

"Well?" he arched an eyebrow at Gary Numan.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," shrugged Gary Numan. "Uhh, I guess I declare you husband and husband. You can kiss now."

They crashed together, coinciding with such intensity that Vince was convinced that someone had set off an intricate pyrotechnics display in his heart. It was like the special effects of an entire Kiss tour compressed into a single moment. All the people, Naboo and Bollo and Leroy and Dan and Jones and Lester Corncrake and Bryan Ferry and Gary Numan and all the people in their shiny outfits faded into white noise. It was just Vince and Howard now. It was always Vince and Howard.

Eventually, their lips parted, but Howard held onto Vince, his arms wrapped tightly around his waist, Vince's hands gently caressing the back of his neck.

"We made it," smiled Vince.

"That we did, Little Man," smiled Howard. "Vince, your eyeliner's running."

"Fuck," whispered Vince, with a laugh.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N**: So yeah, now they're married. If you're wondering what wackiness could possibly follow the wedding ceremony, uhh, don't get your hopes up. I'm pretty predictable. Therefore, read on!

The reception went well - Mr. Moon gave a toast congratulating the happy couple, which slowly degenerated into a lecture on how to read a topographic map (inexplicably accompanied by a series of helpful diagrams and charts) which threatened to derail the festivities, until Jones interceded by drowning out Mr. Moon's introduction to the difference between terminal and medial moraines with a series of thundering beats emanating from the DJ booth. The end of Mr. Moon's speech - which was unfortunately missed by most due to the thumping music, that sounded something like several hundred mobile phones set to vibrate and put through a blender - was, in spite of its somewhat shaky beginning, surprisingly on point, wherein he concluded that he and Mrs. Moon were both very proud of their son.

Two women – one blonde, one brunette, both dressed in a manner that can only be described as indie-rock farmers – approached Vince, sniffling profusely and blotting at the corners of their bloodshot eyes with tissues.

"All right, ladies," said Vince. "Something the matter?"

"It's all just so beautiful," enthused the blonde.

"You and your hairy wife just seem like you love each other very much," said the brunette.

"He's called Howard," smiled Vince, glancing over to where his new husband stood engaged in quiet conversation with Jones across the trinket-laden turntables. "And yeah, we do."

"That's really sweet," said the brunette. "I mean, he's well weird and kind of creepy, but that's really sweet, you know?"

"I mean, George and I are a bit sad we never got a chance to get off with you," sniffled the blonde.

"And we totally would have gone for a three-way, wouldn't we, Bill?" sighed the brunette.

The blonde nodded sadly. "And we're well kinky," she said.

Vince considered the girls' confession very, very, very carefully.

"Aww, I'd have been well into that," he said, "but I couldn't do it without Howard."

"Oh," said the girls.

"I mean, I could talk to him about getting a big kinky four-way together, but with that many people involved he'd probably want to put together an itinerary for it," shrugged Vince. "And it would just get less and less sexy from there."

"Oh," said the girls.

"Listen, ladies, I'd better go find him anyway, I think we're going to do our dance in a minute," said Vince. "Sorry about the shagging, yeah?"

"Thanks," they sniffled, crying into each other as Vince negotiated the floor in search of Howard.

"Vince!" shouted Howard, waving him over. "It's our song!"

When the music began for Howard and Vince's slow-dance, the guests cleared the floor, and stared in puzzlement.

"Is this Tori Amos?" asked a woman in an ironic wetsuit.

"No, I think it's Joanna Newsom," said a man in turned-up jeans on a bicycle.

(It was Kate Bush, for fuck's sake.)

(Kids these days.)

Indeed, it was the song that had provided the soundtrack to Howard and Vince's long-awaited relationship upgrade, the night that the world nearly ended.

"It _is_ our song," smiled Vince, extending his hand to Howard. "Well?"

They joined hands, and stepped out onto the floor.

It was not as though they had had anything planned: when they began to move to the music together, however, they fell into formation quite effortlessly.

And then they ran out to the back garden, kicked off their shoes, and leapt onto the bouncy castle.

He could just see Vince across the room, radiant as ever, engrossed in an intimate conversation with Dan. He was not jealous at all that Vince had his hand on Dan's arm, nor was he jealous when Vince leaned in to whisper something in Dan's ear that made them both blush. Nor indeed was he jealous when Dan enveloped Vince in a tender hug that seemed to stretch on for decades. Nor was he seething with jealous rage when Vince smiled at Dan, then turned down the corridor to their bedroom, turning back once with a cheeky wink. No sir, Howard Moon was not at all the jealous type.

How bleak, he thought. They had been married for two whole hours and Vince was already sexing up stupid sexy Dan bloody Ashcroft. Howard was having none of it, no fucking sir. He strode across the room, hands balled into tight fists at his sides, ready to give Dan a proper earful (and, if needs be, a fistful as well).

"Hey, Howard!" shouted Dan with tipsy exuberance.

"Oh, hi Dan," said Howard quietly, arms hanging limply in defeat.

"You just saved me having to go looking for you," said Dan, swigging his beer. "Vince asked me to, uhh, give you this."

Dan handed Howard a smallish glass of clear brown (sexually frustrated amber, to be precise) liquid. Howard stared at it, tipping it slightly from side to side.

"It's brandy," Dan elaborated. "For nerves. Vince thinks you'll need it."

Howard was nearly too confused to be offended.

"He does, does he?" asked Howard, straightening himself slightly.

"On the other hand, hey, free drink," reasoned Dan.

"That's certainly one way of looking at it, sir," said Howard. "Thank you, Dan."

Dan shrugged. "I think Jones and I are going home pretty soon," he said, resting his empty bottle by the wall. "Baby's due any day now, we need to sleep while we still can. Congrats, Howard."

"Cheers," said Howard, as Dan wandered back into the crowd to search for Jones. So it turned out that indeed, Howard Moon was not at all the jealous type, because there was nothing to be jealous about. Of course. How silly of him.

Howard took a deep breath, and downed his drink in one shuddering gulp. He took one last look back at the winding down party, before making his way to their room. Unbeknownst to him, there was now a handwritten sign sellotaped to his back, which read:

JUST MARRIED

(also, I hear he bums llamas)


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N**: Yeah, this is pretty much the obligatory erotic epilogue, really. Thanks for going on this journey through time and space and love and marriage!

Howard knocked on the bedroom door.

"Vince?" he shouted.

"Howard, is that you? You can't come in until I say so, I'm not ready!" replied Vince.

After what felt like about ten minutes, the clattering cacophony of sounds from inside their room had aroused Howard's curiosity too much to continue waiting in silence. He cleared his throat.

"Vince, can I come in yet?" he shouted through the door.

"Oof, just about, urf, almost... there. All right, come in!" shouted Vince.

And there he was, well, gosh, thought Howard. The room was filled with glittering rose petals and candles, and - though he had trouble dismissing the thought that this posed a fire hazard - Howard had to concede that it looked beautiful. At the centre of it all was Vince, sprawled nonchalantly across the bed, now clad in nothing but knee-high white boots and his little red y-fronts, and a large red satin ribbon tied in a bow across his chest.

"Well Howard," beamed Vince, spreading his arms wide in a grand ta-daa gesture, "say hello to your wedding present."

"You mean... you?" asked Howard.

"Me," giggled Vince. "Well, aren't you going to unwrap me?"

Howard blushed a shade of red so intense that scientists have yet to invent a word for it.

Howard could not say precisely why he was so nervous; he was very thoroughly no longer a virgin, and intimately familiar with the ins and outs of Vince's body, but something about this night made him almost as skittish as he was the first night they made love, if not more so. He hoped – perhaps in vain – that Vince would not notice. Vince, meanwhile, was sprawled enticingly over their mirrorball tweed bedsheets, gazing lovingly at his new husband.

"Well?" he smiled. "How 'bout it?"

Howard swallowed, tugging at his already-loosened shirt collar. He would have strode confidently over to the bed, swept Vince into his arms, and kissed him with enough passion to fill 678739458947592.9 passion fruit groves, but he found just then that he had forgotten quite how to use his legs.

"All right, Howard?" Vince cocked a concerned eyebrow.

"Right," said Howard, taking a deep breath.

Vince rolled his eyes, perching himself on the edge of the bed. "You've not prepared another speech, have you?"

"No, I just, umm... hi," blushed Howard.

"Hi," blushed Vince.

As it turned out, Howard had forgotten how to use his legs _and_ his hands. He fumbled awkwardly with his jacket buttons for a moment before Vince reached out to him, stilling his hands.

"Here," said Vince, pressing his lips to Howard's palm. "Let me."

Vince began unbuttoning Howard's shirt, then paused a moment, his hands resting over Howard's chest.

"It's just," he whispered, "I've never shagged anyone married before."

"Me neither," blushed Howard.

"What if it's..." Vince hesitated.

"Different?" offered Howard.

"Yeah," puzzled Vince. "Hey, what if it's even better?"

"Ok," nodded Howard. "Ok. Let's do this, baby."

Howard drew in a deep breath, and in one swift motion, tore open his nice, bespoke dress shirt (a move he would no doubt regret the next morning, while on the floor, hunting in vain for the missing shirt buttons), and Vince giggled as he collapsed under Howard, who pounced, tripping half-dressed out of his clothes, onto the bed.

"Yeah," grinned Vince. "This is genius."

"Happy wedding," murmured Howard, with a cheeky wink, trailing kisses over every bit of Vince he could reach, like an over-affectionate puppy.

Vince giggled as Howard's moustache fluttered over him like an amorous caterpillar. With a lascivious grin, Howard untied Vince's ribbon with his teeth, and their respective underthings were flung into a far corner of the room. Then it was just the two of them: no pretense, no ostentatious ornamentation to hide behind. Howard thought this was Vince at his most beautiful anyway; beneath all his polish and varnish and baubles and ever-changing looks shone an inner light that only Howard got to see, and Howard felt so blessed to be allowed to see it.

Or maybe he was waxing far too poetical about shagging.

Vince relished the warmth of Howard's skin against his own, the gentle pressure of Howard's hand curled round his thigh, the whisper of breath just barely displacing the trail of fuzz over his lower belly as Howard descended. These moments, this contact, these little gestures were so precious: too often was Howard swathed in those horrid garments he loved so much, but that Vince found too heavy and too brown. Unencumbered by tweed, Howard was perfect. And even encumbered by tweed, somehow, it was all right, because it was Howard. To Vince, he was incomparably beautiful. Even if his poetry revealed a weird preoccupation with dairy products.

Howard found other ways of expressing himself in the night-times. Words gave way to far more meaningful gestures, fingers ghosting over Vince's ribcage, a tongue flicking softly against him, lips drawing him in slowly, making him feel weightless.

Howard was now quite well-practised for having been, well, sexual, for such a comparatively short period of his adult life, but even then, Vince could tell that Howard was likely to explode into the bedsheets any second if he did not do something. As such, dragging Howard's face to meet his and scrambling desperately over the bedside table for their lube had nothing to do with the fact that he himself had been seconds from exploding on Howard's lips. What a ludicrous suggestion.

Nevertheless, he had had no idea he was even able to produce the noise of overwhelming pleasure he made when Howard eased himself inside.

And then they connected again, and when they connected they melted together like soft buttercream on a summer's day. Vince kissed Howard again and again; he kissed and kissed and nibbled gently at that bit where Howard's neck met his shoulder, and surrounded him with his limbs, drawing them as close together as he could. Howard hummed appreciatively. He did that a lot, when they were alone; hummed, moaned, groaned, grunted, panted, sighed, whimpered, and sometimes - when Vince did something that must have felt really _really_ good, he appeared to let out a noise so tiny that only bats could hear, though Howard hoped very much that they would politely try not to notice.

"So, shagging a married man," panted Vince, as Howard took him firmly in hand, "oh christ, this is genius!"

Howard's only response was a sudden, shouted string of blissful profanities when Vince rolled his hips to meet Howard's movements. And _something_ happened then because Vince was moaning and swearing, entirely without meaning to, and getting louder, and Howard began to move faster and harder and all of a sudden they both felt like a summer thunderstorm was about to break inside of them, and they loved each other and everything was beautiful and they came.

When it was over, they lay tangled together for a long time, staring off into the blissful distance until they drifted into peaceful slumber.

"Howard. Howard. Howard. Howard. Howard! Howard, are you awake? Howard. Howard. Howard! Hey Howard. You awake, Howard? Howard? Howard! Howard. Howard. Howard? Howard! Howard! Howard!"

Howard was vaguely aware, in his now semi-conscious state, of someone shouting his name over and over again. He tentatively opened one tiny eye, as little as possible.

"This had better be an emergency of apocalyptic proportions," he mumbled.

"Nope," smiled Vince, snuggling into him, "just me."

Howard smiled, in spite of himself, pulling his arms around Vince.

"Oh," he sighed. "Morning."

"Hey Howard," murmured Vince.

"Yeah, Little Man?" whispered Howard, carding his fingers gently through Vince's hair.

"Get your pants on," said Vince, "I've got a bag of satsumas under the bed."

Vince smiled. Howard smiled. And at that moment, there was no doubt in their minds that they would indeed live happily ever after.


End file.
